RIAA finding rough going at some universities

Thirteen US universities received prelitigation notices from the RIAA last …

We already know that some US colleges and universities pirate harder than others, and now the RIAA is looking to follow up on a few of those schools. The RIAA has begun to send pre-litigation notices to 13 universities with IP addresses that the group has identified as participating in illegal file-sharing. The schools are being asked to forward the notices to the students associated with those IP addresses during a specific time frame. If those students do not settle with the RIAA, the group will file lawsuits against the John and Jane Does and will then obtain court orders to force information out of the universities.

Ohio University is one school that is taking the pre-litigation notices seriously. OU was recently named number one on the list of top pirating schools in the US for the 2006-2007 school year. The school has now received 50 pre-litigation notices from the RIAA, according to an e-mail sent to the student body from OU's vice president of student affairs, Kent Smith. "Ohio University staff and student leaders met late last week to discuss this situation and, out of concern for those accused, agreed that the university would comply with the RIAA's request," Smith wrote. "It is important to note that Ohio University will not turn over names to the RIAA unless legally ordered to do so."

Individuals receiving the forwarded letters from the RIAA will then have 20 days to respond and settle before the RIAA takes the case to federal court. Smith said that the university will provide informational sessions for students with questions, but cannot offer legal advice to students.

Other schools, however, aren't so quick to comply with the RIAA's requests. The University of North Dakota has received two notices from the RIAA themselves, despite not being one of the 13 universities on the RIAA's list—many of their computers are under the same domain as North Dakota State University, which was on the list. UND's IT director Dorette Kerian said that the university is unable to identify the two individuals based on IP address because the incidents cited by the RIAA happened over a month ago, and the university only retains IP records for 30 days. "We're not sending letters to anyone except back to [the RIAA] saying we cannot identify these two people," Kerian told The Bismarck Tribune.

The RIAA isn't going to be happy with that response and will likely still pursue legal action against these anonymous users despite UND's inability to identify them. According to the RIAA, only ISPs (which are the universities, in this case) that keep log files for at least 180 days are eligible for "Pre-Doe" settlement options. Whether some of the other universities who received notices follow the examples of OU or UND remains to be seen, but any university that does have the required IP records will probably have a hard time resisting the RIAA's demands.

Other universities that received notices include Arizona State University, Marshall University, North Carolina State University, Northern Illinois University, Syracuse University, University of Massachusetts–Amherst, University of Nebraska Lincoln, University of South Florida, University of Southern California, University of Tennessee–Knoxville, and University of Texas–Austin.